• SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    You’re hung up on individual positions, so let’s use the two I mentioned. I looked up EMT Salary Central California: Average annual salary is $39,152. Divided by 52 weeks, divided by 40 hours in a work week is $18.82 an hour.

    Phlebotomist is $20.17.

    An average fast food worker is earning $24,473 annually in the same city, or $11.77 per hour.

    Now these new laws will almost double the income for fast food workers, but give EMTs and Phlebotomists a far smaller increase for work that is more stressful, more dangerous, and requires more training. Why should their equivalent income go down proportionately?

    I think you’re maybe reading what I’m saying as “fast food workers are getting too much”, but what I’m really saying is “healthcare workers aren’t getting enough”.

    We’re already in a healthcare worker crisis. What do you think is going to happen when they can just quit their stressful, dangerous job, and go work at McDonald’s, making $2 more an hour than they were before? There’s going to be an even bigger shortage. Sure, you’re probably going to counter with “well then the market will demand their pay goes up!”. But that’s what this whole post is about. Right? The workers getting their fair value. I don’t think the healthcare workers are getting their fair value, and I think it has the potential to cause an even worse shortage of healthcare workers. Sure, it’ll probably be temporary, but how does that help anyone affected by it during the crisis?

    Edited for a bunch of mobile phone typos and formatting.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Yes, that’s before this new law. Now they will be paid a lot more. You still don’t seem to understand what ‘minimum wage’ means.

      • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        I know what you’re saying. Maybe you just have a lot more faith in hospitals and the free market than I do. You’re making an assumption that the hospitals are going to voluntarily give them proportionate raises above the new minimums. I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen. They’re going to get bumped up to the new minimum until market factors force them to go higher, and the industry and employees will suffer until that all shakes down. Anyways, it’s sending a message that saving someone’s life in a crisis on a daily basis is only worth 25% more money than running a cash register. Perhaps you agree with that. I don’t. We’re both entitled to our individual perspectives on this subject.